Adult themes in rite of passage movie
Three young friends navigate friendship, sex, and consent in a chaotic resort
How to Have Sex (PG15, 91 mins) Streaming on Arovision Directed by Molly Manning Walker
By Jen Shieff
Karaoke is a screaming match, drinking is to excess, puking is regular and continuous music befits a holiday for teens in a beach resort. The setting is Malia, on the island of Crete, but amongst the cacophony, there’s a call to take a look at what friendship really means.
Three young friends from England, Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Skye (Lara Peake) and Em (Enva Lewis) check into a resort hotel, wanting to be close to the action by getting a room with a pool view.
The receptionist claims all pool view rooms are booked, until Tara wafts up, full of confidence despite her small stature, thrusts out her hand and wins the receptionist over with a lie.
She says Skye can’t swim and she and Em need to keep watch.
Laughing, the girls make their way to their room and plunge into a holiday they’ll never forget, but for unexpected reasons.
Skye, among her harmless jokes, is the most overtly in search of sex. Em is interested in an LGBT fling while Tara is a virgin, keen to put an end to that but not as keen as Skye is on her behalf.
Gloomy clouds hang over the resort at the opening of Molly Manning Walker’s debut film, suggesting not all will be fun and games.
It’s reminiscent of Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun (2022), in which father and daughter share the joy of being on holiday but something melancholic looms.
Sure enough, Tara finds that sex on the beach with Paddy (Samuel Bottomley) is just as uncomfortable as she’d expected it would be. Paddy is a weird guy, according to his mate Badger, who has known him forever.
There’s a raunchy scene on a stage where usually sensitive Badger (Shaun Thomas) engages pleasurably in debauchery, all the while keeping an eye out for Tara.
He’d prefer to be with her, mysterious though she is, appearing to be not listening to him, which intrigues him.
He wants to protect her, although it’s not at all clear what he needs to protect her from, adding to her allure.
It’s as if after the beach sex, Tara doesn’t want to be there. She disappears into herself and the others think she’s really lost.
Paddy makes a casual attempt at a repeat performance the next night when Tara says she’s asleep, clearly unwilling.
Skye and Paddy are blabbermouths, and Skye is a nosy parker. Neither cares what they say about their so-called friends, or who they have sex with.
The film’s title takes on multiple meanings as the characters look for sex and may or may not find it.
For all three - Skye, Em and Tara - exam results and their hopes for their careers make having sex pale into insignificance, a so-what event.
The desolation Tara feels after losing her virginity is paralleled by a street scene of Malia after an all-night party: the street is littered with cans and other rubbish, miserable, used.
But it’s racy fun that dominates and the film is worth seeing for its insight into the party scene and for an interesting angle on giving consent.